This past Saturday was the first national "Day of Action" for the 2012 Barack Obama re-election campaign, with volunteers from all over the country canvassing around the country to sell their man to the general public once again.
In Ybor City, approximately a dozen or so people appeared at 5 p.m. to receive instructions about how to engage prospective voters, equipped with clipboards and "I'm in" cards in which they would collect names and phone numbers of acknowledged supporters – all for an election still 16 months away.
Believing that there is nothing like the enthusiasm of young people, the action on Saturday was being supervised by summer organizer Ashley Garcia, just 17 years old and a week out of graduating from high school in Spring Hill.
This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2011.